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Police Operations and Data Analysis Report, Morgan Hill, California
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employee gains an understanding directly from the supervisor regarding any positive or negative
comments, and is able to provide rebuttal to information contained in the evaluation with which the
employee disagrees.
Generally, by MHPD policy 1002, full-time employees are to receive an evaluation each year on the
employee’s date of hire. MHPD reports about 50 percent compliance with the annual performance
evaluation requirement, far below what should be considered acceptable by management staff.
Recommendation:
Efforts should be made to improve compliance with the annual performance evaluation
requirement to ensure personnel are kept abreast of their performance status and
documentation is available should performance-related administrative action be required.
Workers’ Compensation
Injuries and exposure to health hazards resulting in workers’ compensation claims are inherent in
policing. While workplace safety training is necessary and helpful in some circumstances, the
unpredictable and volatile nature of policing makes it impossible to prevent injuries/claims. The
MHPD is not alone in coping with this disruptive and costly reality.
As part of CPSM’s operational assessment, the MHPD claim rate for calendar years 2013-2015 was
examined. Specifically, CPSM was looking for an unusually high incidence of claims as well as
patterns of injuries that may lead to identification of performance risk factors that could be
addressed to reduce the incidence of injuries and associated costs.
CPSM staff spoke with Morgan Hill Human Resources Manager Michelle Katsuyoshi. CPSM
requested and received documents pertaining to the number, type and cost of claims filed for the
period noted. Injury patterns and performance risk factors as identified by city staff indicated 17
percent of claims for assault during arrest, 14 percent for auto accidents, and 7 percent for training.
Nothing in the claim documentation provided, nor during the interviews with concerned parties,
suggested patterns of injuries or abuse of the process. The “lost time days” as noted in Table 6-1,
however, appear higher than those in other CPSM studies of similarly sized cities.